GLOBAL OIL PRICE CRISIS EFFECT ON MALAYSIA OIL AND GAS FIRMS

This study determines the effect of financial leverage towards financial performance of Malaysia's public listed oil and gas firms before and after global oil price crisis, from the period of 2012 until 2018. This study was conducted on the data of 25 companies of oil and gas firms that are listed in Bursa Malaysia derived from Thomson Reuters. Multiple regression analysis has been used to analyze the financial leverage; asset to equity ratio, debt to equity ratio, and long term debt to total capital, and the financial performance; Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Return on Investment Capital (ROIC). Based on the findings, only asset to equity ratio was positively and significantly impact towards financial performance. Furthermore, debt to equity ratio shows negatively significant impact towards financial performance. On the other hand, long-term debt to total capital claimed negatively significant impact towards ROA and ROIC. However, long-term debt to total capital was found to be negatively and insignificant related to the ROE. It can be concluded that, there are negative relationship between financial leverage and financial performance of public listed oil and gas firms in Malaysia. This study recommend that public listed oil and gas firms in Malaysia should improve on their leverage to perform better their financial performance. As a conclusion, investors and mana (C) 2020 Published by European Publisher.